TRENTON, N.J. — Turns out all it took to top Watson, the Jeopardy-winning computer, was a real-life rocket scientist.

Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey is just such a scientist. The congressman topped the IBM computer Monday night in a “Jeopardy” exhibition match held in a Washington hotel.

Holt says it was fun to beat the heralded computer. But he also says it’s important that Americans realize how important math and science education is to the nation’s future.

The Democrat from the Princeton area built a lead in categories including “Presidential Rhyme Time,” in which the correct response to “Herbert’s military strategy” was “Hoover’s maneuvers.” The congressman also correctly identified hippophobia as the fear of horses.

Watson beat him to the buzzer with the answer “love” when prompted on what Ambrose Bierce described as “a temporary insanity curable by marriage.”